Category Archives: high carbohydrate diet

I did a short swing into Thailand in my previous post and decided I’d like to keep writing for a while about places I’ve visited, so instead of ranting and raving about diets, food, size and so on, I decided I’d just publish the names of books I’ve found interesting.

The reality is we all have to work out what sort of food and eating habits suit each of us. I’ve avoided the dreaded word “diet” because it implies losing weight and eating naff food and all the horrors associated with a food regime which will likely leave us hungry, unhappy and piling on the weight when we return to normal food.

Like I’ve said, I know emotional influences surround my relationship with food and weight, and I wonder if the fact that so many people are overweight these days (as in seriously overweight, not overweight by the BMI shonky weight formula) is because of the pressures people are under today with long hours, poverty wages, unemployment, fast-paced society and so on.

After all, if you’re feeling stressed, what better way to make yourself feel good than to splurge on food you love in excess quantities. The trick is to eat the food you love in reasonable quantities and make good choices. But aaahhh! if food choices were that easy, we’d all know exactly what our bodies would like, we’d stop eating when we feel less than full, and we’d choose food we like, not food we feel morally bound to eat and avoid food we feel morally bound NOT to eat!

Every man, woman and their dog has an idea of what the best way to eat is and what food is good and what isn’t. Be your own detective: tune into how you feel about particular foods, when do you feel good after eating, when do you feel slow and tired, and so on. Sort out what food suits you!

Be that as it may, these books have been very helpful to me, they dismantle myths about obesity and the great “eat your carbohydrates” brain-washing which has permeated our society to the point of being mythologised and worshipped, and interestingly, the writers aren’t part of the diet/nutritional/pharmaceutical/medico in-crowd (with apologies to some doctors who I know are pretty decent people!).

However, I have to say that I am not a fan of the size acceptance which says if you are really, really fat, that’s okay. I respect people whatever their size and I really loathe the fact that if you’re fat you’re automatically considered fat/lazy/stupid/lack control/greedy and so on. People are worthy of respect and consideration whatever their size.

But I have seen some very, very fat people in Australia, the UK and particularly the US, and the truth is that our bodies are not meant to carry super-weight. I differentiate this from what is called “overweight” these days and which I call “normal” because I Iived in earlier times when there was a far more realistic approach to what our size should be.

As you get older, your body will find it hard to carry severe, excess weight. Simple fact. Sort out what is healthy for you and get your own agenda, but if your body feels uncomfortable at the weight you’re carrying, then it’s a nudge to you to work out how to get fit and healthy. But don’t be dissatisfied with your body if it doesn’t fit the “thin” stereotype you see these days. Along the way you may lose weight, but don’t focus on weight – focus on the fit and healthy part because that’s by far the healthiest way to look after yourself. Like I said, ditch the “thin is good” stereotype, take a good look at your body, and decide what is right for you.

This week I saw that the National Health Service in the UK is to offer gastric bypass surgery to obese patients. I also saw a headline in one newspaper which read: “Drop the staple gun, Doc, and Tell Fatty to grow some willpower”. The article contained such comments as:”I have also found fat people funny”; “it is something they have imposed on themselves through a combination of gannetry, indolence and stupidity”; and “sometimes I even go to places where I know there will be lots of fat people and sit on a bench watching them clumping around, sweating and gasping, and snigger to myself.”

As you can see, it’s okay to be bigoted about weighty people because somehow, being not thin, we have ceased to be human beings and can be ridiculed, insulted, discriminated against and then be told to have surgery which can be life-threatening and possibly lead to our deaths. Doubtless if weighty people died during gastric bypass surgery the fat haters would be gleeful to have less fat people to pollute their perfect lives.

The reason why I feel infuriated by the headlines is because I have been reading a couple of books and other material which actually show that “obesity” and the much-vaunted BMI are a recent creation and a nice little money earner for the medicos and diet industry based on shonky health research. At the same time, the low-fat, high carbohydrate diet extolled to Western nations like the UK, US and Australia over the past few decades also has feet of clay, a big con trick by the food industry to protect their profits despite research showing that people following what they believe are healthy diets are actually endangering their own health.

BLAME THE VICTIM

But hey, let’s blame the victim, then you don’t have to look at the food giants, the pharmaceutical industry and the diet industry who have all colluded to squash research showing the health dangers of a high carbohydrate, high-sugar diet to protect their god-almighty profits.

And let’s not mention that people also eat for emotional reasons such as stress, long working hours, job insecurity, low wages, unemployment, social interaction, homelessness and so on, because then you have to look at the social reasons for over-eating and lack of exercise because people are knackered by the end of the day trying to cope with the pressures of life in Western society today.

This has tied in with the fact I wanted to follow up my posts on women’s liberation with some material about diets and thinness stifling women’s creativity and power, and also how eating can be emotional, as I witnessed when I got as fat as butter when my Mum was dying of lung cancer.

4) The giant con trick perpetrated on Western society by the dietary, medical, pharmaceutical and food industries to protect their profits regardless of the ill-health of people following what they believe are health diets.

I have no doubt that questioning the low-fat, high-carbohydrate diet and the all-powerful BMI is tackling sacred cows, but I really hate being conned and both of these are con tricks, not exposed by the industries involved, but brought out into the light of day by individuals doing independent research and publishing their findings.